Black Angels bless Record Store Day

Psychedelic indie rockers The Black Angels will play a sold-out show at the Magic Stick in Detroit on April 16. As a bonus for local fans, the band will play a show at 1 p.m. at Culture Clash Records as part of the fourth annual Record Store Day.

“I’m blown away,” Culture Clash’s Pat O’Connor said. “I love The Black Angels. One of their Record Store Day releases completely knocked me out. The day we got it in I probably listened to it nine times straight just flipping it and flipping it. It’s amazing.”

Record Store Day is a nationwide movement to shine a light on independent music retail and local business in general.

“There’s not going to be much room to move around if it’s anything like last year,” Culture Clash’s Shane Shirey said. “While we had great bands last year, none of them are anywhere near on the page where The Black Angels are at right now. Even looking nationwide, we have the biggest one where the band is actually playing.”

One way bands and record companies support Record Store Day is by providing new releases exclusively to independent record stores. This year’s Record Store Day features more than 300 albums, including records from Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd.

The Black Angels has three releases on Record Store Day including limited edition B-sides of its album “Phosphene Dream” on white vinyl.

“We’ve chosen to celebrate by bringing in bands that embrace the day,” Shirey said. “The Black Angels embraced it big time by putting out three exclusive releases for that day. Even if you don’t pick up one of the releases, we’ve got these great bands playing starting at 1 p.m.”

On top of working, Shirey will perform with his band Frank & Jesse as it releases its new album, “Let It Come Down.” (see story below)

O’Connor sees Record Store Day as an opportunity to introduce people to quality music.

“Music is still widely enjoyed; it’s not like music has died down,” O’Connor said. “The physical end of music certainly has really diminished. This turns people on to the alt experience you take in at a record store and preserves that culture.”

Culture Clash Records is located at 4020 Secor Road. The store opens at 10 a.m. on April 16 with live music beginning at 1 p.m. Visit TheCultureClash.com for more information.

Ramalama Records at 3151 W. Central Ave. is also participating in Record Store Day. Call (419) 531-ROCK for more information.

Toledo rockers Frank & Jesse will perform two free shows April 16 to celebrate the release of its first full-length album, “Let It Come Down.”

The group will play at Culture Clash Records, 4020 Secor Road, at 3 p.m. as part of Record Store Day, a national event featuring in-store performances, exclusive releases and deep discounts on merchandise. Also playing will be The Black Angels and Suuns.

The official CD release party will be at the Ottawa Tavern, 1817 Adams St., where the group will play around 10 p.m. Also playing will be Joey and the Traitors, Fangs Out and Chicago’s Delmar and the Dedications.

Frank & Jesse

“Let It Come Down” speaks to Rust Belt residents, said guitarist and vocalist John Salvage.

“The thread or the theme of it is exactly what we are — four guys that grew up in Northwest Ohio or Southeast Michigan,” Salvage said. “There’s not really any overt message or anything like that, but the feeling of it, at least I hope, is pretty familiar to anybody who grew up in this area of the country.”

A vinyl version of “Let It Come Down” will be pressed in late May.

Frank & Jesse — named after the outlaw James brothers — formed about two years ago, said Salvage, who was performing mainly solo shows when longtime friend Shane Shirey approached him about starting a band.

“He was really dramatic about it, said if I didn’t start a band with him he was gonna quit music, that that was all he wanted,” Salvage said, laughing. “It was very flattering.”

The plan was to form an alt-country outfit.

“Mostly because when I played those songs by myself, they sounded kind of country just because they were played on acoustic guitar and I played harmonica with it, but when the full band came over, it didn’t play in as well as we thought,” Salvage said. “We still have country tendencies but we quickly became rock ‘n’ roll because we all grew up playing punk music. So we had these country songs in theory, but they were played through hugely loud, distorted guitars so they didn’t really sound twangy at all.”

Drummer Shirey, guitarist Seth Williams and bassist Eddie Keaveny — all veterans of various Toledo-area bands, including the Uncertain 5 and Unsinkable Molly Brown — currently round out the group.

Former bassist Seth Anderson, who played on the album and recently split amicably with the group, will play the Ottawa Tavern show.

“It took a lot of time to get out and Seth was a part of that whole thing so we definitely wanted Seth to be a part of the release,” Salvage said.

Putting out a full-length album took longer than expected and was a huge learning process for the band, Salvage said. The album was recorded at Toledo’s Firefly Studios with producer Brett Dennison. For more information, visit www.frankandjessemusic.com.

This entry was posted
on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 8:29 am and is filed under Music.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.